Don Thompson
Invasion
Without so much as a sack of dust,
Empty-handed, the wind
Flees south like a refugee,
Only a few days ahead of winter.
*
Seasoned
Light spatters on stagnant pond water
Like grease on a skillet—
Cast iron, the kind old-timers
Cherished and refused to scrub clean.
*
Train
Mid-morning train in the distance:
Lonelier than midnight, somehow,
Despite coffee and the raucous birds
That don’t even notice it.
*
Before Dawn
The first bird of the morning rasps
Some blue notes in a smoker’s voice,
Unanswered: Not up early,
But a lounge singer home late.
**
Miriam's Well: Poetry, Land Art, and Beyond 